In the 2025/2026 season, the Cantus Ensemble celebrates a quarter of a century of dedicated work on the Croatian and international music scene. Over two and a half decades, the Ensemble has become a synonym for the highest interpretive standards, world premieres of contemporary works, collaborations with leading composers and performers, and an open platform for young authors.

 

The anniversary season brings six concerts in the regular Zagreb cycle, along with a series of significant guest appearances and festival performances in Croatia and abroad. The central themes of the season include musical collaborations, international exchange, historical moments from the Ensemble’s past, as well as glimpses into the future through premieres and projects with young composers.

 

The excitement surrounding the new season is heightened by the fact that the Cantus Ensemble has a brand-new visual identity for all concerts this year, created by the versatile artist Zlatan Vehabović, who, as he says himself, greatly enjoyed working on this project:

 

“The posters came about through the initiative of art historian Karla Pudar, Cantus Ensemble producer Lovorka Sršen, and artistic director Berislav Šipuš, as a continuation of the Ensemble’s earlier and truly remarkable initiative of engaging visual artists to design the visual identity of the upcoming concert season.

When the collaboration was proposed to me, I was genuinely happy and honored, especially considering the finest examples of such synergies between visual and performing arts, like that of Boris Bućan and the Croatian National Theatre in Split.

 

The guiding idea for the designs came to me at a brilliant moment, as my artistic practice is currently focused on the process of collage—both in painting and in the most classical visual sense. The method and approach of collage are closely related to the structural elements of music itself, which is hardly new, since collage has often been recognized as a visual counterpart to numerous musical masterpieces from the modern era onward.

 

As I was already deeply immersed in collage in my painting practice, it didn’t take much reflection. Once I learned the details of the upcoming program, countless ideas immediately suggested themselves, drawing on my existing archive of sketches, templates, and concepts that I work with daily.

I only regret that the season doesn’t have 15 concerts—it is so much fun to create visual designs for the Ensemble’s performances.”

 

Follow Zlatan Vehabović’s works accompanying each of the six concerts in this Cantus Ensemble concert season!